Title :: She Shines Like Winter Rating :: FR13 Fandom :: The Omega and Alpha series Word Count :: 600 Beta :: azraelz_angelDisclaimer :: The Omega and Alpha series and all related characters are copyright Patricia Briggs and Ace Hardcover. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all related characters are copyright Joss Whedon and ME. No infringement intended.

Synopsis :: The world fell away just when Tara was starting to understand it again.

She was still lost.

She’d lost her way, lost her grip on Willow and tumbled, falling like Alice to land in a world covered in snow and filled with thick, towering trees. An unyielding cold had settled over her as Tara wandered, hoping for the Cheshire Cat to come and riddle her the way home. A line appeared between her brows and she shook off the random bits of childhood stories that still haunted her thoughts after Glory had violated her mind.

Glory.

Goosebumps rose, skipping over and down the skin of her shoulders and back as she redirected her hands into the pockets of her robe and wished she’d landed somewhere warmer. Her breath misted outward and Tara lifted her chin, met the biting cold head-on as she made her way through the thick trees and winced as her slipper covered feet sank deeper into the snow. Her lips trembled with the urge to chant, ‘fiat lux,’ and bring forth a small spark of flame that would warm her for a few moments, but even that small a spell would cost her too much physically and she needed to conserve her strength.

A shadow spun her and Tara’s eyes widened as she searched the thick foliage surrounding her on all sides and she trembled—not entirely from the cold—as she waited and watched. The harsh sound of fur against bark forced her to swallow her next breath and she resisted the urge to run, to flee. If she’d learned anything from her time with Scoobies it was that predators liked the chase, the thrill of the hunt and she was also very certain she’d just lost a slipper into the snow beneath her.

Her jaw trembled, teeth chattering as the world around her quieted and all she could hear was the hammer of her heart, the hitch to her breath. Another shadow darted through the trees to her left and Tara hesitated before taking a step forward—losing her slipper to the snow—and winced as her damp sock was exposed to the frigid air. She stilled when the shadow that had been toying with her separated from the trees and a massive wolf, made of thick fur and rolling muscle, made its way cautiously forward.

Beautiful was her first thought before her fear choked off everything else and then the fur receded, slipping back inside skin that stretched and reshaped as bones broke and then knit back together until a man crouched in the hole in the snow the wolf and his transformation left behind. His body shivered, head lifting slowly toward Tara, the sharp angles of his body and face made her think teenager. He looked sensitive and gentle and young and still she took a step back. She remembered the considering look of the wolf and ignored the façade in front of her, lying to her.

He rose, nude and unashamed as he continued to stare at her with such awed fascination and Tara’s brows knit together at the conflicting personalities in one being. He took a step forward, sinking knee deep and shivering into the snow and Tara stumbled back a step, nearly falling as she shook her head remembering her first and only interactions with a werewolf—with Oz.

Fear tightened her throat and a bit of laughter bubbled up, echoed in the quiet of the forest and the werewolf, the man paused, his head inclining and nostrils flaring slightly before he called her, with great certainty and pleasure, “Omega.”